


Signal on the Mountain

by bellefire



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Archive 81 AU, Archive 81 characters, Dimension Travel, Feral Behavior, Goodish Peter, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Memory Loss, Mystery, Not Beta Read, Time is Weird, strangers in a strange land
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2019-10-08 22:48:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17395154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellefire/pseuds/bellefire
Summary: In which Peter and Stiles find a way out of the station on their own and the two end up somewhere else. Somewhere familiar and altogether different. A place in between, where time is different, strange creatures roam and all the while the world outside moves on, unstoppable as a train.





	1. Transmission #82

**Author's Note:**

> So this is an Archive 81 au which is a podcast that if you've never heard of it I recommend. You don't need to have listened to understand this fic though. A wip is the last thing I need yet here we are again. I've had this on my laptop forever though so...yeah.

 

_Transmission #82_

 

 

Beneath the sound of rain on an old sheet metal roof static buzzes in dead air, wavering in and out until it stops completely ending in a series of papery crackles. The radio—a clunky rectangular model from 1962, is covered in a thick blanket of dust.

Components and dials are set to the side, just as untouched, the radio should not be capable of making any noise at all. The rusty metal shed that serves as the radio’s home and tomb hasn’t been pried open in years.  
Not one soul is around to hear the static, no one to see the tuning window light up, nothing except the dust and endless aching quiet waiting for the silence to end. The shed waits. Beacon Hills waits. Then, after a second and eternity…

  
“Hey. It’s, uh, me. Still.” A tired voice comes through the radio’s scratchy speakers, “So. Peter’s catatonic again. Getting harder to snap him it out of it, I haven’t told him yet. I’m not sure if I’m going to either. Ignorance is bliss. That’s what they say…yeah, that’s what they say. He would know if he listened to these recordings, but he won’t. He thinks it’s important to exercise autonomy or some shit. Like he’s worried we—you know what? That’s not important. I’m over the fact Peter fucking Hale is the only person I trust, the only person I ha—”, the voice pauses a moment with a heavy sigh, “That doesn’t matter either. Here things are or they aren’t. For now he and I are. He’s still Peter even if he’s losing more of himself. He knows me, knows what we’re trying to do out here, still an asshole.”

  
The voice cuts off abruptly followed by strangled low wailing almost like a siren but too wrong and disjointed. Everything the voice has just said plays again in reverse and at over twice the speed. Just as fast as it happens it stops with a few final clicks and the voice materializes through the static once more seemingly unaware of the interruption.

  
“We found a building to bunker down in to get away from the fog and wait out the Long Night a couple of days ago. I think it used to be a post office, there’s letters everywhere to some dude named Dan. Cold as fuck in here. Never thought I’d miss the train station. I haven’t seen tracks in a long time, or heard thunder for that matter. I don’t think the Hunt stretches out this far. The ley lines are leading us to the city, Peter doesn’t want to risk it. Last time we encountered other living creatures, well, unfriendly is an understatement and cities tend to have inhabitants. Usually. He’s out though, we’ll have to argue about it later. I’ll win this one—and yeah we’re still keeping score. I don’t know how, I just know we’ll find something there that can help us. I can feel it. Same way I feel like I’ve been here before. All I know is we can’t just—Oh! Oh, fucking finally. Peter’s blinking I gotta go. Trust no one and all that shit.”

  
Stiles stops the recording on his phone. The battery has been on 77 percent since…since. However the clock dutifully goes on and on and has become their only way of keeping track of time. Time is wonky here anyway though so Stiles isn’t sure how much good it does. Sometimes hours feel like minutes and once in a while under no discernable pattern the nights last for days.

  
“Stiles.” Peter rasps, the way he says his name is reaffirming rather than questioning. In a shot Stiles is hovering around the wolf without actually touching him. He doesn’t bother to hide his concern.

  
“Peter.” Stiles affirms. He feels guilty he’s never experienced this from Peter’s side. Stiles has never lost himself, not even when the Hunt first took him. Peter has theories as to why, something to do with a spark and inherent magic. Stiles doesn’t care that much, not when so far any magic he may have has been pretty damn useless. At least it feels that way. Every time he has to watch the once powerful Peter Hale look so lost, yeah, he feels pretty damn useless.

  
Peter cards both his hands through his hair and straightens wrinkles out of his clothes. Always so vain. Stuck in a weird ass ghost world or not. Stiles can’t keep the smirk off his face earning a scowl from the werewolf.

  
“You good?” If this were any of his friends Stiles would be putting his hand on Peter’s shoulder or something. He doesn’t.

  
Peter’s scowl melts into a smarmy half grin, his words are slick as oil, “Worried, sweetheart?”

  
“Ugh, gross.” Stiles stands up and leans away, quietly grateful Peter is back and if he’s himself enough to make half-hearted passes he’s himself enough to get going soon. Stiles finds a nearby wall that seems like it’ll take his weight without buckling, slumping against it he saves the audio file on his phone. He wonders how long it will be before he hits triple digits.

  
The wind picks up outside and they both tilt their heads to listen. They’ve maybe not surprisingly, Stiles doesn’t like to think on the whys too much, never run out of things to talk about. Nights like these, though, they more often than not sit in silence. Once in a while the howling wind is not wind at all.

Stiles can admit only in his own mind that he feels marginally safer with Peter conscious. He waits for the sag in Peter’s shoulders that tells him they’re in the clear before relaxing himself.

  
It doesn’t come.

  
Instead Peter slowly rises to his feet, claws ready, eyes electric blue. He backs Stiles into a cobweb-covered corner then takes a defensive position in front of him. Stiles glowers at the wolf’s back, he doesn’t care if his heart is beating out of his chest—he’s not a damsel. The old glass in the windows crack in spider web formations but they don’t break. Stiles reevaluates his damsel position.

  
Above and around them the wind’s howling turns into a long echoing shriek accompanied by the flapping of wet fleshy wings. Something heavy lands on the roof, Peter’s and Stiles’ eyes go up. Whatever it is drags along a moment before lifting off again. The shriek grows softer, the flapping further away. According to Stiles’ phone an hour has passed but that can’t be right.

Nothing is ever right.

The danger has seemingly gone but Stiles can’t breathe. His breath is coming too short and too fast, he doesn’t feel it when Peter drags him to the ground, can barely feel anything at all. Peter arranges Stiles between his legs, holding them chest to chest in an unyielding grip.

  
“Feel my breath, Stiles, match it.” Peter orders while he takes big deep breaths and lets them out slowly.

  
The heat of Peter against him does little to warm Stiles up, long before the Wild Hunt he’s had trouble getting warm. The void the nogitsune left empty inside him is always a pit of ice that never ceases to crawl up into his veins. The gentle rhythmic rise and fall of Peter’s chest does help though. Their breaths sync after a too long moment, a headache is already blooming in Stiles’ temples.

Eventually Stiles pushes off and collapses next to Peter.

  
Peter’s calculating blazing blue gaze looks down on him, he says nothing.

  
“I’m fine.” Stiles mumbles.

  
An eyebrow goes up, along with the glowy eyes it just looks ridiculous. Stiles stays on the dusty floor for a long time, until any warmth he may have leeched from Peter is a dead memory.

  
When his bones start to ache Stiles huffs and forces himself to sit upright propping his elbows up on his knees, “It’ll be dawn soon.”

  
“Hmm, you think?” Peter’s still staring. Stiles lets him, it’s just a thing Peter does. Has always done to be honest.

  
Outside the violet of night is starting to fade into a sickening yellow, like a bruise. That didn’t always mean it would be day soon but this time it does, Stiles can feel the promise of light tugging at him. With the sun came songs. From far away a woman they’ve never seen sings in a sorrowful laid-low language neither of them understand. The song, Stiles believes, keeps some of the worst monsters out there at bay.

  
Stiles has the urge to check the time, still hoping against odds there’s some type of pattern to all this, he takes his phone out of his pocket again and stops.

  
Immediately Peter's breathing down his neck, “What’s wrong?”

  
“I—”, Stiles fumbles a second, the creeping sensation of paranoia nestling deep in his gut, “It’s been recording.”

  
“You’re sure you stopped it?”

  
Stiles glares, “Yeah, I’m sure. I had it off. I know I did.” He draws up the voice recording app, pressing stop once again. Once again it stops.

  
Peter and Stiles share a look. They know better than to believe in coincidences.

 

Noah Stilinski sits alone in an old beat-up pickup truck on the side of a poorly maintained road in Colorado. The man hasn’t slept for a full night in months and hasn’t touched a razor for longer. All of his possessions are piled haphazardly in the bed of the truck. He’s always been a utilitarian man so there isn’t much.

The most valuable possession he has he keeps in the seat next to him in a cardboard box on top of a wrinkled map. Inside are rows and rows of old audio tapes. Each one is labeled by number in the familiar messy scrawl that makes Noah’s chest hurt every single time he reads it. He selects the next one in the row he’s been working through.

The last row.

  
He pops the tape into the cassette player and stares into the tall boney trees surrounding him until his son’s voice fills the cab. Noah puts the truck into drive and starts back up onto the road heading east out of the storm clouds following him.

 

 

 


	2. Transmission #88

 

 

**Transmission #88**

 

  
  
“Four. Three. Four. Zero. Twenty-three. Five. Zero. One. Eight-teen. Five. Zero. One. Twenty. Zero. Twenty. Eight. Five. Zero. Nineteen. Twenty. One. Twenty. Nine. Fifteen. Fourteen. Zero. Nine. Zero. One. Thirteen. Zero. Eight. Five. Eighteen. Five. Zero. Nine. Zero. One. Thirteen. Zero. Nineteen. Twenty. Twelve. Twelve. Zero. Eight. Five. Eighteen. Five.” The strangely synthesized masculine voice stops then after a solid minute starts to repeat the numbers again in the same monotone voice.

  
The man across from Noah stops the tape and takes off his clunky headphones. Cool grey eyes stare at the former sheriff beneath bushy grey brows, “What the hell have you brought me, Corporal?”

  
Noah takes a sip of his coffee, in a tin cup because of course it would be, “What the hell does it sound like? You were the goddamned RTO, not me.”

  
The man’s name is Walsh, and he’s one of the few guys Noah kept in semi-contact with after leaving the service. Where Noah had sought a career and family Walsh went the other way. He’s lived in this cabin for the past decade as far away from crowds as he could get, alone, but not necessarily unhappy.

  
Walsh makes a gruff noise, “Good to see you’re still a smart ass, Stilinski. This shit sounds like one of them commie numbers stations the crack pots like to obsess about.”

  
Noah raises his brows.

  
“I am not a crack pot.” Walsh says grumbles, “I’m independent and I don’t like shaving now that I don’t have to. Not a damn thing wrong with that.”

  
“No.” Noah agrees, “Not a damn thing.”

  
Satisfied Walsh puts one end of his headphones to an ear and presses play again, “Something different about it though. The voice isn’t quite like anything else I’ve heard. Odd pauses. The numbers aren’t random either, probably a simple A1Z26 cipher which is also fuckin’ weird for a numbers station.”

  
“How so?”

  
“Those things are usually more complicated than an easy cipher like that. These tapes are fucking old, the reels would disintegrate in a summer breeze. Where the hell did you get them anyway?”

  
Noah gulps down the rest of the coffee like a shot. He wouldn’t mind something stronger but he knows he can’t trust himself to stop if he starts. All he can think of is Stiles’ face every time he looks at a bottle too long.

  
“My son’s room.” The box had just appeared one morning, closed with duct tape sitting in the middle of the empty room.

  
The other man blinks, uncharacteristic surprise coloring his rugged features, “When did you have a son?”

  
Ice grips Noah’s heart, sharp and painful. He’d called Walsh a couple of days after Stiles had been born and described his beautiful baby boy in proud detail, even sent photos through the mail back when people still did that sort of thing. The fear that one day after more people tell him Stiles doesn’t exist he’ll eventually forget too. He knows he won’t make it that far. He won’t let himself.

  
Outside wolves in the surrounding woods howl breaking him from his reverie. He glances through the cabin’s wavy glass windows at the orange and pinks of the encroaching dusk. Wolves were supposedly eradicated from Colorado in the 40’s. Walsh told him they were making a comeback. They did that. Wolves. Survived against the odds.

  
“His name is Stiles.” Noah finally says, “He’s missing. And that’s his voice on that tape.”  
  


 

 

  
The river is a deep moss green under the hazy fog and too viscous to be water in Stiles’ personal opinion. The rocky sand on the shore is black like the islands in the Mediterranean formed from volcanoes. The woman in the boat leans on her oar as if it goes straight down to the bottom. She’s cloaked in stitched-together rags, her face is young and old depending upon the angle you viewed her in. She’s the first person Stiles’ has had a conversation with other than Peter in a very long time. He wants to flip her ugly aluminum Jon boat over.

  
“I don’t know what to tell you lady, we don’t have anything to trade for payment or whatever. But, listen, just get us to the city and I’m sure we can work something out.” Stiles edges between Peter and the woman subtly as he can. Peter’s face is set in a false calm, Stiles knows better—the wolf is seconds away from trying to rip the woman from the boat and tearing her into pieces then claim her stupid boat for himself.

  
The reasons why that’s a bad idea are innumerable. Mainly because they chose to seek out the Boatwoman after seeing ‘Find the Boatwoman’ clawed into the side of a turned over greyhound bus when they were scouring another abandoned town for supplies. They chose to be here. Secondly because, well, it’s starting to get dark. It’s starting to get dark and he and Peter are out here on a pier with no cover whatsoever. Stiles isn’t sure and he hasn’t said anything with Peter being so…wired lately, but he thinks they might be being followed. Something slow. Something relentless. Something intensely interested in them. Apprehensive he glances around at the flimsy skeletal warehouses several yards away from the pier.

  
They need on this boat.

  
“Okay, okay, what about—”

  
“A finger.” Peter’s voice is huskier than usual. He holds up his hand in an offering gesture.

  
Horrified, Stiles spins around, “What!? What the hell? No!”

  
“Acceptable.” The Boatwoman says rather blandly. Too blandly, her eyes sparkle in a skin-crawling type of interest.

  
Stiles grabs ahold of Peter before he can do anything stupid, “You are not cutting off anything, you psychopath!”

  
Peter blinks slowly at him; his eyes slowly travel down from Stiles’ frantic gaze to where Stiles’ hands are wrapped around his wrists. Stiles swallows, Peter could snap him in half he wanted to. He’s kind of forgotten. Abruptly Stiles lets go and stumbles backwards. The wolf keeps his hands where Stiles had them a for a few seconds flexing his fingers ever so slightly, his eyes glow and follow Stiles. Peter is…Peter is not well. The wolf is so close to surface all the time. Stiles doesn’t know how to fix it. They are both worse for wear in a lot of ways however Stiles isn’t the one alternating in between chronic comas and violent outbursts—never at Stiles, so far.

  
“Body parts are good, what about blood? Just blood.” Stiles desperately questions the Boatwoman.

  
She cants her head to the side, birdlike. “His? No. Yours? Yes.”

  
Peter roars, Stiles flinches the Boatwoman does not. The awful feeling they just got the attention of all the dark wandering things in a ten mile radius is suffocating.

  
Determined, Stiles pushes on, “How much?”

  
The Boatwoman reaches into her cloak retrieving a small corked bottle, she tosses it over to Stiles who catches it easily. It wouldn’t be very much blood at all, certainly better than a whole finger, yet Peter is still heaving harsh breaths eyes flickering like a faulty wired light bulb. Multiple pairs of iridescent eyes flash in the thickening fog behind them. Stiles can’t tell how close they are or what they are but the sun’s song that was carried gently on the wind as gone silent and the air still.

  
“Peter, snap out of it. We need to go, right now.” He steels himself to get in Peter’s space, “Here, you can do it yourself. It’s just a cut. We don’t have time to discuss it, you know we don’t”

  
Stiles shoves his forearm in front of the growling werewolf and holds out the bottle. Peter grabs him, surprisingly gently, then slices a short but deep enough cut in Stiles’ arm with a claw. The blood pours steadily into the bottle, they barely have it corked before Peter gathers up Stiles and their shared bag of supplies over his shoulder and leaps the five feet or so between the pier and the boat.

  
The boat rocks side to side splashing foul smelling water over Stiles’ already rank clothes. The immediate sense of dread gradually dissipates, Stiles peers over into the fog that’s nearly engulfed the rickety old pier they stood on and finds all the eyes gone. Unrecognizable carvings are scratched into the inside of the boat, they pulse a dull violet before dimming into nothing. The carvings and suddenly no longer being watched are not a coincidence. Nothing is out here.

  
The Boatwoman plucks the blood from Peter’s hand and pushes off with her oar, “Nothing can touch my boat. Not without paying. You are safe until I get you to the city.”

  
Stiles separates himself from Peter who has finally, finally, calmed into something resembling his normal demeanor though he is eyeing the cut of Stiles’ arm with an undue amount of focus. He snaps his fingers in the wolf’s face in an admittedly dick-ish way. Peter rolls his eyes.

  
“So,” Stiles shuffles forward toward the Boatwoman uneasy with being on the water, “you seem like…”

  
“A local.” Peter absently supplies.

  
Snapping again and doing a damn good job of shaking off unused adrenaline Stiles stealthily tries to get a better look under the Boatwoman’s massive grim reaper hood, “Right! Do you know where we are, exactly? We’re not…we’re not dead, right?”

  
She does not turn to speak to him directly more intent on steadily drawing them up the river against the current but she does answer, “No, this is not the land of the dead. Many are like you. Lost.”

  
Not dead. Stiles and Peter share a relieved look. They’re not dead, at least that’s something. The next question Stiles has does die as something thumps beneath the boat. The front end gets knocked off course, just a little, enough for Peter and Stiles to grab onto the sides of the boat warily.

  
“Keep your appendages inside.” The Boatwoman orders. She doesn’t seem too distressed even as the water around them starts to churn and the scratched symbols light up again. Looking closer at the symbols Stiles is getting surer and surer they were scratched in with somebody’s finger nails. Old blood can still be seen smeared the edges.

  
Stiles and Peter jerk away from the sides and huddle up in the center of the boat together. Long glistening tentacles rise and tip back into the water. More and more rise to the surface all around them, as far as the eye can see—a great writhing mass that if it came down to it neither of them would be able to escape. The Boatwoman lights a twisted lantern and hangs it on a metal hook at the front of the boat, she continues using her oar keeping their pace through the water. Her lack of freaking the fuck out is not calming to Stiles in the least. However, Peter’s icy cool does. Keeping up with the wolf’s mood swings isn’t easy but at least he gets the stone cold rational Peter half the time. Well, a quarter of the time. The rest of the time Peter checks out altogether.

  
“Those are runes of some kind.” Peter gestures to the glowing symbols, “As long as we’re in here we’re safe. Like our darling chauffeur says. ”

  
Creepy magical boat lady and Peter calls her a ‘chauffeur’. Jesus.

  
“Yeah.” Stiles hates how strangled his voice sounds, “And as long as we keep all hands and feet inside the freaking ride at all times.”

  
“Exactly.” Peter smiles. Genuinely smiles.

  
The weird here keeps piling on and if they don’t roll with it they’ll get buried. Lost. Maybe even become one of those wretched creatures that prowl the night. Some of those things…look too human, and even once in a while look too werewolf.

  
Stiles slumps and gives Peter a small smile in return.

 


	3. Transmission #102

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just gonna get weirder.

 

**Transmission #102**

  
  


 

  
Stiles comes into consciousness the way he’s learning to do a lot of things, violently, “What the fuck, Peter, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fu—”

  
Peter hovers over him like the worst kind of guardian angel, “Darling—”

  
“Don’t you ‘darling’ me you fucking asshole, my goddamned cell phone is fused to my fucking arm!”

  
Between squinted eyes it almost looks like some kind of John Carter gauntlet bullshit. All the apps on the screen are gone, only the voice recorder remains, it remains and it refuses to be shut off no matter how hard Stiles tries. In a panicked craze he considers briefly cutting his whole arm off, he’d almost done that once for someone a long , long time ago. He had a saw back then, someone around here probably would sell a saw to him, the market had everything. Probably wouldn’t even cost that much, just some saliva or at the most maybe a memory. He’s the only one that had those to spare between him and Peter.

  
Peter grabs his arm, stopping Stiles’ flailing and stopping him from scratching at his arm any more than he already has. Stiles hadn’t noticed the bloody tracks he was leaving. Peter sneers, “I told you we shouldn’t have listened to her.”

  
Stiles wrenches his arm away, “Way to blame the victim, ass.”

  
“If you would trust me instead of thinking I’m sort of invalid this wouldn’t have happened.”  
“I don’t think that.”

  
“And yet you wouldn’t even consider—”

  
Stiles is even more off balance, his arm throbs and Peter is stuck in this new rut where he tries to make things better and worse at the same time, “That’s different. You wouldn’t even if we were…it’s just different. Who you really are, you would never want that. Not with me.”

  
“Maybe I don’t want to be him then.”

  
A deep ache jolts through Stiles nothing at all to do with his arm, “Maybe I want you to be!”

  
A silent snarl forms and vanishes on Peter’s lips, “Right.”

  
Free of charge the Boatwoman had told them they could go to the center of the city when they got there to find the crystal-mancer near the market, he could help Peter stay sane. More or less keep his feral nature in check. He’d not been easy to find, nothing was in the city. The city, as far as Stiles has heard, doesn’t have a name, every street is different. Different styles of architecture, different feel, odd angles everywhere.

  
The people here are just as varied and strange. Some look as human as Stiles, others are just wrong in a way that makes Stiles want to crawl in a corner. To look at them caused his eyes to strain and a headache to bloom fresh and painful behind his eyes. The word ‘fae’ pings around his brain, a part of him knows better than to say it out load. All of them had places to be, Stiles and Peter were the only ones wandering around looking lost and that was their mistake: looking like prey in a place they’ve never been before.

  
Light glints from the crystal around Peter’s neck. If they hadn’t come to the crystal-mancer perhaps Peter would be tearing a bloody path through the city and perhaps Stiles wouldn’t have woken up in alley with shoddy wiring connecting him to his cell phone in a way shitty politicians joked about after disappearing for a total of one measly hour. Perhaps neither or one and not the other. Stiles needed Peter with him. He would have done anything to facilitate that for as long as he can no matter what.

  
Peter side-eyes him, so much himself Stiles could cry if he didn’t feel like screaming, “We need to get off the street. Does your arm impair your legs?”

  
Jesus Fuck, Stiles takes it all back, “I’m, well, not fine but yeah I can walk.”

  
“Then get up.” He rolls his hand in a haughty move-it-along gesture while scanning their surroundings relentlessly. Stiles forces himself up off the cobblestone keeping his arm close to his chest, Peter grabs his less Syfy channel arm and drags him along out of the shadow of the alleyway into the beating thrall of the city.

  
While the city is full of life and color opposed to the varied apocalyptic wastelands surrounding it Stiles was less paranoid out there in the wild. Out there easy rules applied, follow the song and don’t stay out in the night. The city has something else. The city is built from the waking world’s fragments and ceaseless origin-less nausea, conveniently placed with the wastelands to one side and a gigantic heaving sea on the other. Near the docks he saw a woman rip out all her teeth for, what looked like to him, a stick. Nothing and no one could be trusted.

  
And yet.

  
Everything led them here, now Stiles has an arm strapped with technology, it feels like it’s on purpose. Someone is trying to lead them along, and recording is important for some reason.

  
The wrong, wrong, wrong people don’t scurry into their holes when night encroaches. No, they have lanterns, of different shapes and sizes but definitely similar to the Boatwoman’s, they hang all over the city outside every door, every store front. It’s beautiful. It’s horrifying, because these little flames are all that separates them from the dark hovering high above the city. A great black swirling cloud, made up of dancing shadows and animal growls that only appears when the sun goes down—the sun is starting to dip low in the sky and the lanterns are already out in force.

  
Peter pulls Stiles into a noisy tavern then manhandles him into a curved booth that allows their backs to be to a wall—a faux safety but Stiles appreciates it. He keeps his arm tucked out of sight, at least the throbbing has ebbed off.

  
A waitress slips over to them dressed up in old fifties diner clothes, her eyes a milky white and smiling with twice as many teeth as she should have, “Hello pretty boys, something to drink, eat?”

  
Every story Stiles has ever read about faeries runs through his mind. Never accept food or drink from the fae, don’t give them your name, don’t make deals. The stories never mentioned dank dive bars doubling as diners that smelled like sea water. Everyone else were having no trouble throwing back glass after glass of black liquid or stuffing their greedy gullets with stringy too red meats.

  
When neither make a sound, Peter being his menacing self and Stiles being confused as hell and unsure what to say, the waitress makes a humming noise then smiles, “Tell you boys what, I’ll send over a bay special for you two sweethearts to share. On the house, you look like you’ve hard time.” She doesn’t wait for an answer before bustling off.

  
Several tense seconds later a platter appears on their table in a not quite puff of sulfuric smoke. Food having that many tentacles makes Stiles’ stomach queasy; they looked too similar to the ones from the river. Same color and everything, just much much smaller. Like babies. They are being fed baby river monsters alongside fried something or other with bowl of dip in the middle. Did they look like the kinds of people that ate river monsters? Stiles eyes his clothes, the same ones he’s always had, he’s washed and repaired them a thousand times—added straps of cloth here and there to carry things. Finding clothes hadn’t been a priority out there. However they both look relatively clean. Peter more than Stiles.

  
“What?” Peter says out the side of his mouth, “Never had calamari?”

  
Stiles stares down at the plate. Suddenly and painfully aware that he wasn’t going to make it out of this world the same. There’s every chance he’ll eventually become one of those long-legged creatures screaming through the night or a city dweller who’ll have no problem ripping out teeth or eyes to get what he wants. He already gave his blood. This world is already changing his body. And he hasn’t been able to do a damn thing about it. Something is still following them while someone else is trying to lead them.

  
Stiles is afraid.

  
Furiously Stiles takes a bite of the fucking tentacle, barely gags, swallows down the briny jelly with a brave face. There’s no gotcha moment, the other patrons don’t stop and stare at him. Tinkerbell doesn’t show up with chains to tie them to Neverland forever like dark world lost boys. However Peter does look duly horrified. So picky. Stiles on the other hand is a seventeen year old maybe and has put plenty of suspect things in his mouth. And maybe. Maybe he’s leaning into the insanity, because maybe that’s the way they do more than just survive.

  
A chair scrapes along the wooden floor, a man twirls it around to sit at the edge of the booth facing them with a friendly grin. Instinctively Stiles places a hand over one of Peter’s though Peter doesn’t snap nor snarl at the newcomer. His eyes are ice.

  
“Well, now,” the man drawls in an accent Stiles think might be British or maybe Australian, he was never that good at accents, “I do know newbies when I see them. The name’s Lou, and if you’re up for it, maybe we can help each other.”

 

 

  
Noah twines the left over red string over his finger. He looks over his handiwork, he’d used heavy duty tape instead of tacks simply because it’s easier to roll up that way. His old army buddy sent him to someone able to cross reference his tapes with hundreds of numbers stations broadcasts. They got few hits, Stiles’ voice has popped up a few times, making the people who kept track of those things to lose their minds. Just like Stiles, not even here and causing a stir.

  
The cross references and Noah’s own research point to one of the strongest leads he’s had in…a long while. On the motel room wall in front of him, in the middle of everything where all his red string twines a path, there is a shitty black and white print out of a collection of radio towers surrounded by an old stone wall. It’s called radio station MDZhB, located in Russia, and no one in the world claims it despite it steadily broadcasting for almost four decades.

  
Noah doesn’t know what he’ll find there but no force on earth can stop him from going, but he's going to need help.

 


	4. Transmission #132

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's only going to get weirder, kids.

 

 

**Transmission #132**

 

 

  
“I believe you. You know I do, I’m the one who had these feelings in the first place. But this is…”

  
Noah frowns down at the phone, it’s on speaker while he’s busy packing up the few things he bothered to get out of the truck, “What?”

  
“Russia.” Like that single word encompasses how foolish he’s being.

  
Lydia is…a good girl. A smart girl. And a damned good friend. She’s one of the last from Beacon Hills, one of the few who stayed—one of the few who was even capable of staying. She thinks that’s where she can best be of use, that the key to everything is the town where it started for her. But Beacon Hills isn’t where it started. Towns have been abandoned overnight all over the world for as long as anyone can remember. Noah is no fool either, thick-headed sometimes but never foolish.

  
“I know what I’m doing.” He’s past trying to sound like the adult here. All the kids from Beacon Hills had seen more action than the most grizzled of war veterans, he didn’t have the right to try and assert himself like that anymore. He should have seen it sooner. Especially with Stiles.

  
“I wish I could go with you.” She sighs over the line harshly causing it static out strangely almost like feedback, “At least Derek will meet you there. But I’d like it better if I was there.”

  
“I’ve been to other countries before.” Noah huffs tiredly.

  
“But can you speak Russian?”

  
“No, can you?”

  
“Yes.”

  
He blinks, “Of course you do. Listen I need to get going, I was calling to tell you I received those scans you sent me. Thank you.”

  
“You don’t ever have to thank me, Sheriff.”

  
“Not the Sheriff anymore.”

  
“Sure.” She says blithely. “I expect texts from both of you, tell Derek I mean it. Just because he’s spent all this time roughing it in the jungles of the Amazon finding himself or whatever doesn’t mean the world stops being a functioning society too.”

  
He chuckles, ignores how raspy it is, “Talk to you later Lydia.”

  
She repeats his sentiments and hangs up, he lets his end stay open a moment listening to the faint static that’s still there, more pronounced now. He listens to the white noise until the call ends itself. Noah stares down at the phone then shakes himself and secures the lock on his luggage.

 

 

 

 

“This is Peter.” Stiles waves at Peter’s general obnoxiously smirking face, “He’s a psycho but I’m learning to kind of like him.”

  
Peter makes a sound like he’s in pain, “What a ringing endorsement, darling.”

  
Nice of the wolf to let Stiles cover his honest sentiment with a joke. Half the crew of the ship seem to find them amusing, which yay, the other half seem to be looking at them like they’re wondering what they taste like. Less yay. To be fair Stiles probably has a pretty heavy bias toward the non-human looking among them.

  
“Alright!” Lou bellows with a roguish grin, “Now that we’re all acquainted, I’ll give you a tour and get you two lovebirds settled in.”

  
“Um, we’re not—”

  
“Whatever you say, kid.” Lou crooks his finger, “C’mon let’s get this show on the road. Some of us don’t have the time to spend wandering around staring at the sights with our mouths open.”

  
Stiles snaps his mouth shut and scrambles to keep up, not wanting to be left behind with the plant dude in particular, he stumbles a bit and righteously ignores Peter’s warm palm at the small of his back though the thin material of his t-shirt as the wolf guides him through a low-hanging doorway.

  
When their tour gets to the engineering chamber Lou explains the ship they’re walking inside of is alive but not sentient, ‘like the trees from where you two came from’. Their new captain doesn’t think of where they came from as home, this was his home now, but Stiles has to wonder. If that was the truth of it then why was he so keen on helping them find a way back? They’ve learned from him that people come back and forth all the time but the trick of it is you have to go through the same way or in the case of a select few: make the way yourself. Even here tearing through realities was no cheap party trick. The powerful beings that roamed the skies and slumbered looking like mountains in the distance could not do such a thing so easily.

  
The world they came from is lucky for that.

  
“You haven’t seen the trees I’ve seen.” Stiles says staring into a complicated mechanism Lou points out during his explanation, “This is the…heart?”

  
Lou blinks then smiles, pleased with himself or Stiles or both, “Yes, yes it is. You can touch it if you want.”

  
Peter’s fingers twitch as Stiles reaches out. The heart of the ship feels like buttery leather stretched over massive interlocking mechanical parts. It pulses beneath his hand, warm and living, strange but so very alive. For the first time since being in this altered world Stiles feels real wonder with no fear souring it. A smile wins through the reservation and he glances back at Peter who’s already looking back at him with a small genuine smile of his own.

  
On the outside the ship looked like the love child of a modern freighter and old school galley. So Steampunk Stiles could cry. The ship didn’t appear like it was quite angled the right way for a water going vessel but that at least he could compartmentalize. Other than the engine room the inside is relatively normal, old but well kept up. Everything in this world as far as Stiles has seen has been either old or derelict. Seeing something that is obviously someone’s home is, nice, for lack of a better word.

  
They get shown the living quarters, the storage area far beneath, and spend some amount of time at the helm. Stiles was never a pirate kid, he was always more into the sorcery than the swords, he could be swayed now though. They may not really have a choice about it.

  
A little later they come to the mess hall where the rest of the crew has congregated eating snacks and laughing. Stiles tries hard not to stare at the life-size walking talking teddy bear that seems to have somewhat of an attitude problem. How Peter can scan over each of them without even so much as an uptick of an eyebrow Stiles would like to know.

  
“They’re a good bunch. Trustworthy. You two will indeed have to share quarters and help out here and there but I think it’s square deal.” Lou smiles at them, it’s a charming smile.

  
Too charming. Stiles and Peter had already spoken before they met up with Lou at the city’s docks after their first meeting. Lou might not be human but he had a human heart, one that hasn’t so far ticked out of turn when offering them help. His scent is a different matter, Peter is very good with scents. According to Peter Lou isn’t being completely honest with them. Also according to Peter it’s worth the risk, Stiles thinks so too.

  
“We’re in.”

  
Lou claps hands, “Welcome aboard! Ha, sorry that never gets old. Seriously, I hope you don’t mind sharing a room. I figured you wouldn’t because, you know.” The bastard actually winks before swaggering over to his crew mates to procure them mugs of something that almost smells like coffee.

  
Peter’s not as smug as Stiles thought he would be, the wolf gives him a look and glides by accepting Stiles’ drink and subtly sniffing the contents before handing the cup over. Stiles does love that constant paranoia.

The crew is mostly welcoming; having new people on for a little while isn’t anything new for them apparently. Quick enough Peter turns on his own latent, and also terrible, charm and starts schmoozing amongst them. Personally after so long on their own Stiles is feeling the social exhaustion like never before.

  
All he and Peter have are a couple of old canvas bags between them but its good enough to excuse himself from the welcome party to check out their new room. He doesn’t actually mind sharing, all they’ve been doing is sharing up to this point. The room is actually bigger than some of the places they’ve squatted in. Stiles takes both of the bags and dumps them out on the lowest sleeping bunk.

  
In all of five minutes their meager belongings are put into some type of tidy order. When he’s done he lays back on the bottom bunk and closes his eyes. Stiles thinks he can feel the ship gently bob in the water and he’s not sure if the sensation is soothing or sickening.

  
Either way, he drifts.

  
A violent buzzing erupts form Stiles’ arm, so loud he yelps off the thin mattress and onto the floor. The screen embedded in his arm flickers in and out, snow like the old box TV he used to have in his basement. He taps on it and kills the urge to bash it in with the nearest heavy object but it doesn’t stop. The buzzing goes on and on, Stiles crouches to the floor and presses his hands to his ears. It doesn’t help, he can feel the noise vibrating off the bones in his body—inescapable.

  
He’s not sure how long he’s been on the floor for when big hands pull him up and out of the room and into the cool evening air of the deck. He can feel the growling against his chest, he gasps for air but its Lou’s voice he hears.

  
“Ah, looks like someone is trying real hard to talk to you, mate.” Lou says with sympathy.

  
Peter growls at the other man. Stiles opens eyes, Peter’s crystal necklace dangles in his face glowing an angry red. He thinks maybe one little crystal wizard isn’t enough to contain the pure ferocity that is Peter Hale, thinks maybe that’s not such a terrible thing.

  
The sound cuts off in slow ragged stops and starts, it leaves the feeling of residual numbness throughout his limbs. Stiles takes a breath, finally, finally, and glowers at his new captain, “What the hell does that mean?”

  
Lou makes to tap Stiles’ arm but thinks better of it after a quick glance at Peter’s crazy eyes. He shrugs, “You’re not the first to get, uh, upgraded, around here. I’ve known a couple of people with hardware. They were connected to something else. Be careful kid. I can help you two with getting a portal. But that there? That’s always been beyond me.”

  
“These people you knew,” Peter demands through a mouth crowded with too many teeth, “what happened to them?”

  
Lou scrubs the scruff on his chin and gives Peter a shrewd look, “The guy, he got stuck somewhere. He was good fellow, helped people. I’m pretty sure he still exists. The woman. She came here and went back. I don’t think their augments had anything to do with where they ended up. Like I said though, the electronic aspect? I’ve never been too great at it. I’ll leave you two alone. We embark first thing in the morning.”

  
The deck of the ship has lanterns too, the sun sinks and the lanterns light up on their own, wired to the ship. Stiles stays leaning into Peter and they watch stars come into existence like thousands of eyes peering down over the vast ocean. The city on the other side sits quietly beneath the constant dark mass above it, having all that stark openness across the horizon is disorienting.

  
Peter’s crystal dims to a dull barely there glow. Eventually they arrange themselves shoulder to shoulder with their legs over the edge of the stairs leading to helm.

  
“We can find a way to get it removed.” Peter says.

  
“No.”

  
Peter’s brow furrows.

  
“We know this thing listens to us, and now we know whoever is listening wants to talk back. I don’t think it’s a bad thing.” Stiles explains.

  
A snarl pulls at the wolf’s lip, “I would say you curled up and whining is in fact a bad thing.”

  
“I was not whining.”

  
“Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

  
Stiles shakes his head and voices the worry he’s had seen since the morning before after a night of no sleep, “Peter. How much do you remember?”

  
Blue eyes stare at him, angry and resigned, “I remember you.”

  
“Do you? Do you really?” His heart is beating too fast. Faster than when his bones wanted to vibrate out of his body.

  
Peter looks away and that in itself is damning, “I remember you. I remember leaving the station with you. I remember waking up with you by my side every day and long night after. Stiles, that’s all that matters to me.”

  
“Yeah,” Stiles says softly, “but it shouldn’t be all that matters. Everything mattered you. So much. You hid it better than everybody. But no one got that angry who didn’t care.”

  
“So you keep saying.” Peter sounds annoyed. His whole life has been stolen from him and he’s simply annoyed. “But I know I would be doing same things with or without these memories you’re so hung up on.”

  
Stiles is annoyed now too, “And what’s that Peter?”

  
“Surviving. Thriving. And taken care of those important to me.” Peter catches Stiles’ wrist and runs his nose across the veins there.

  
“I hate you.”

  
Peter grins, “Liar.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
